


Paris' Kindness

by WillowQuill



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm sorry Feuilly ily, Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 19:45:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5304437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillowQuill/pseuds/WillowQuill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He bit his tongue; he was but one man in their worldwide scheme.<br/>The feelings his friends bruised of his were not worth pausing their work to speak about. He never would have let them see, but something had changed in his life. Something that crippled him in more ways than the emotional.</p>
<p>Feuilly stumbles sobbing into a meeting of the Les Amis one night and it's an unexpected person who steps up to embrace him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paris' Kindness

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Feuilly week in October, and horribly late. I hope you enjoy it regardless. :)

When Feuilly walked into the night's meeting of the Les Amis de l'ABC, he took uncharacteristically small and quiet steps.

Every part of him that moved was moved with careful control and painstaking concentration. Labored breaths and measurably uniform blinks of his eyes were what he funnelled his every scrap of power into; counting each step, blink, breath, and second was how he kept himself going as he shuffled into the roaring room of his friends.

It was four beats of his heart and three seconds before he was noticed. Feuilly was drawing himself upward to his full height, aiming to look as normal as he could when he heard Joly call his name excitedly- once. Two more breaths before it was called twice. He tripped and lost count of his heartbeat as it stopped, the walls seeming to crowd closer to him, the lights blinding.

Chest aching, he took five, six, seven breaths in increasingly quick, stuttered and heaving measures. Feuilly’s eyes fluttered as he tried to keep up with his body’s failings. Had Joly called again? Three times? Four?

Feuilly's face fell.

He didn't see himself and his resolve crumble, but if the Les Amis' reaction was something to judge by it must have looked spectacular. Feuilly never cried, he could never let himself do that. He suffered inhumane hours of labor to pay for rent, medical costs, and if he was lucky food; the moment a man in his situation became weak, life would crush him. Feuilly didn't have the luxury of letting himself fall, he simply couldn't afford to, but now as the lights swam and his hopes of keeping his composure faded, he found himself drawing his shaking, calloused, dirt stained hand up to cover his wet, scrunched face-

And Feuilly sobbed.

Hands and bodies were immediately in all surrounding directions. A small form had latched itself onto him- Jehan- and he could hear Enjolras' high pitched voice somewhere to his left sounding worried and upset.

The voices surged up into a crescendo when Feuilly's legs gave out and suddenly he found himself on his knees, covering his face with shoulders shaking. Loud, shrieking, pathetic noises escaped him with every sob, and Feuilly let it happen as he searched but couldn't find within himself the ability to stop. With the sickeningly empty realization that he had no more strength left within him, Feuilly knelt in the middle of the crowd of his friends and let himself be held.

The bitterness he felt had been building up for years. It was his friends, his fellow men that fueled it. The little things: Grantaire drinking bottle after bottle of expensive wine, Courfeyrac's impeccable on-trend dress, Jehan's endless stacks of books and oddities- all these things that Feuilly himself couldn't ever view as tangible being treated as trivial. As his untreated cough grew worse, he saw Joly ordering an experimental machine for hiccups. As Feuilly bit his tongue to stop the bile rising from his empty stomach, Bossuet juggled and bruised apple after apple.

It was never that his friends were rude; they didn't do it to flaunt their wealth, they didn't know how deep the lines of poverty and dirt in Feuilly's face dug. They all were living their lives with the means given to them by birth, and that was what Feuilly knew hurt him the most. His friends didn't think about it. For all the work they did to help the workers and other poor, for how high their banners hung and their voices raised, there would always be a fundamental disconnect that Feuilly faced everyday.

It hurt. It always had, but it had been bearable. He kept quiet about it. They were working toward change and he knew he and his friends would achieve it. He bit his tongue; he was but one man in their worldwide scheme. The feelings his friends bruised of his were not worth pausing their work to speak about. He never would have let them see, but something had changed in his life. Something that crippled him in more ways than the emotional, Feuilly had been told of a massive change happening in the workshop.

It would effect him in the worst way. Overnight, he had no job. No money. No way to pay for the roof over his head, the medicine he got off the street, or the crumbs he called a meal. He had slept in his bed the previous night wondering how long it would take him to freeze once he was kicked out of his dorm. Winter of all seasons, winter.

He hadn't planned to tell anyone. He didn't need pity, he never wanted pity, but now it seemed as if fate saw fit to give him it as Feuilly sobbed and sobbed endlessly into the shoulder of Bahorel and the embrace of a young poet.

He refused their immediate questioning but allowed himself to be brought to a table where Musichetta brought plate after plate of hot food and a sizable cup of good wine to be set infront of him at Enjolras' insistence. Feuilly only watched with great pain as his friend handed over money like paying was nothing more than an inconvenient distraction.

He had had nothing to eat since the previous day's breakfast but the offering only served to upset him further. Charity, that's all he saw in it. Food not earned by him and bought by privileged money- not won through hard work.  
He stared at the offensive dishes and savored instead the sour turn they gave to his already upset stomach.  
Feuilly turned his face away and refused to look his frantic friends in the eye.

It was Combeferre who took him by the shoulders and addressed him so directly he had no choice but to look up.  
"You have us worried Monsieur Feuilly. In any other occasion we might be swayed to let your privacy prevail in the face of curiosity, but I am afraid such restraint is impossible. You look not well."

An understatement.

The group sat in unhappy, baited silence after that imploration. Feuilly took shaking breaths. The voice in his head screamed for his silence, mercy to the stream of unearned support that would no doubt follow his confession. He deserved no more help than the other jobless factory men, his connections shouldn't help him. He wasn't a charity case, he didn't want pity, he...

He was tired. Feuilly felt tired. Feuilly felt tired, hungry, upset and on the verge of letting loose more tears. He wanted to be held more than his pride was worth to him.

"I've lost my job."

The tone of silence shifted so immediately Feuilly almost winced. No one knew quite what to say, none had ever been so dependent on such a source of income. He bitterly misinterpreted their expressions meanly, though he knew such an assumption was unfair to his good hearted friends. He was struck by a sudden urge to make them understand, to make them aware of the peril he now sat in.

"I am not sure what my fate shall be yet, whether it be the frost claiming my bones, the hunger consuming my good humor or the cough which I now consider an old friend. Winter, she is cold, but my soul feels as chilled. Please, no mention of fans. I'm afraid I need no further inflicted breeze." His words fell plastic and bitter from his quivering lip. He hated himself for saying as much, for a man who wanted no pity he seemed very able to put himself forth as worthy.

He wished to leave the room and their stares but could not find motivation to so much as lift his hand. He was heavy, he was tired, and he wished to sleep warm and long- emergence from such slumber he regarded as unnecessary.

It shocked him as well as the room who was first to come to their senses. It was a shadow who approached, a whisper that glided on nimble feet from behind Marius to stand beside Feuilly.  
Her hand reached up and pressed to his shoulder. It was with astonishment that Feuilly looked up at her; she appeared as a vision. The streets themselves had stepped up to embrace their newest resident.

Eponine offered him a strange look. As Feuilly searched it, he found a great many things but no sign of the pity he felt engulfed by in the room. She gave acceptance, understanding, and brotherhood.  
He felt warmed by such an intimate understanding that they silently shared, her comfort brought with it great peace.

It was only a moment later that his friends broke their silence and sprung into action of course, immediately he had housing with any or all of them and offers of food to fill the stomachs of ten men. They argued amongst each other about who had the most convenient lodgings for their now quiet friend. Joly, Bossuet, and Bahorel were all determined by the group to be in possession of too small homes, Jehan and Grantaire discounted for their cluttered houses, and Combeferre reluctantly ruled out for his apartment's distance from the city's centre. Courfeyrac was already letting Marius sleep on his couch yet contested most fiercely for the honour of housing another one of his friends. He was locked in furious debate with Enjolras, the only man who could possibly challenge him over the matter with such passion.

Feuilly watched the clashing of hospitality as guilt set in at inconveniencing his friends in such a way. He felt a burden, an unworthy burden. A girl stood beside him who had lived and survived his presented life for years, his friends reactions to them both showed so plainly their contradictions. While they wished to help the poor, Feuilly's wellbeing started fights while Eponine's was only acknowledged with small acts. While Joly and Bossuet sometimes bought an excess of food to slide over to her, or Grantaire passively mentioned his sister's dress being ruined by paint whist handing her a spotless smock- these incidents were rare and small. Courfeyrac was countering with intentions to buy another couch and Enjolras was practically standing on top of a table.

Feuilly pressed gently into Eponine's touch. He gravitated toward her warmth, leaning just ever slightly to favour her side. Though a skittish and cautious creature, she sensed in the man before her no ulterior motive and allowed him to indulge in her gentle support. His unsettled and upset reaction to his friend's intentions was not lost on her.

She watched the scene before them with a vague sense of amusement. Looking to the man beneath her hand however merited more melancholy feelings. The lines and dirt covering his face were marred with the tracks of tears that smeared his cheeks. She had an inkling of what pride might drive him to reject. The firm shoulder under her hand was strong but the man processed no strength within him at that moment. The help his friends might offer him was a saving grace rarely seen in Paris, she watched him carefully.

As the battle continued to be waged, Eponine took her opportunity. Swooping her face downward she drew so close to his ear Feuilly held his breath.

She spoke in barely a whisper, but the gravel of her voice delivered the words to him in utter clarity:  
"Accept them, you'd be a fool not to."

Her words were still being tossed around in his head when her lips left his ear and her hand left his shoulder. Eponine disappeared back into the crowd of his friends, the blessing of Paris now given to Feuilly. She would leave him to navigate his friend's well meaning actions; the hurt of his pride would be well worth the housing and food he was to be provided with.

It was determined he would stay with Enjolras. With his defenses destroyed, Feuilly dug into the food and wine in front of him feeling it's warmth. During the course of the meal Feuilly pocketed some of the bread and cheese and without any hesitation, as Enjolras escorted him to the door with proclamations of procuring his friend a good night's rest, Feuilly passed this food to Eponine.

A quiet thank you for Paris' kindness.


End file.
